Congress passed a bill that restricts U.S. funding that fuels one of the world's most brutal forms of child exploitation.

Currently, an estimated quarter of a million children serve as soldiers for government forces, paramilitaries and rebel groups around the world. In the past year, American tax dollars funded military assistance to six governments who use children to fight in their armed forces. The Child Soldier Prevention Act, which Congress passed today as part of a larger human trafficking bill, threatens to cut several types of U.S. military assistance to countries that continue to enlist or force children into their ranks.

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.

A campaign being launched Wednesday has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave and is now on a solo tour. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.

UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday called on Israel to lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported.

After two days of discussions, the council, which consists of 47 member states, passed a list of 99 'recommendations' of gestures for Israel to make to ease Palestinian suffering, including freeing all prisoners.

The US did not take part in the discussion, as it says the body discriminates against Israel.

Human rights advocates have called on Obama to seal the prison's fate with the stroke of a pen by signing an executive order on the day he takes office.

But the Obama transition team has said that no decision has been made on how to move ahead on the president-elect's commitment to shutter the facility. Analysts warn there is a host of complex issues that would need to be settled first, including what to do about the current military commissions system and ongoing trials.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday lashed out at settlers in Hebron who attacked Palestinians and their property in recent days, joining other Israeli figures in branding the attacks a "progrom."

Settlers in the West Bank city went on a rampage after Israel Defense Forces evicted dozens of them from a building whose ownership is disputed. The move came after Israel's High Court ordered that the settlers leave the building, dubbed the "House of Contention."

The killings, details of which were buried in classified U.S. files for a half-century, were intended to keep southern leftists from aiding the invaders at a time when the rightist, U.S.-allied government was in danger of being overrun by communist forces.

Family survivors last month met with the U.S. Embassy for the first time, saying afterward they demanded an apology for alleged "direct and indirect" American involvement in the killings.

Declassified records show U.S. officers were present at one killing field and that at least one U.S. officer sanctioned another mass political execution if prisoners otherwise would be freed by the North Koreans. Uncounted hundreds were subsequently killed, witnesses reported.

TVNL Comment: History shows that America has never protected "democracy" or "freedom". America has only protected "capitalism." U.S. Military actions, for the most part, have protected the profits of capitalists.

Berkeley's City Council will delve into national policy again next week when it votes whether to demand the United States charge Berkeley resident and former Bush adviser John Yoo with war crimes.

Yoo, a tenured professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, wrote the memos offering legal justification for torture while he worked for the White House from 2001 to 2003.

The City Council will vote Monday on the five measures. In addition to demanding that Yoo be charged with war crimes, the city will decide whether to order Boalt to offer alternatives to Yoo's courses, so no student is forced to take a class from him if they don't want to. Yoo has taught constitutional and international law at Boalt since 1993.